Uma emergência indígena. An indigenous emergency. This is how the largest organisation bringing together indigenous associations and communities in Brazil has defined this pandemic. We are talking about Apib, Articulação dos povos indígenas do Brasil, the articulation of indigenous peoples of Brazil, which since the start of the Sars-CoV-2, the new coronavirus, pandemic has counted more than 22,600 infections and 148 peoples that have experienced cases of Covid-19. For a total of 639 deaths.

Who was Aritana Yawalapiti

Among them, as of today, is chief Aritana Yawalapiti, 71 years old. One of the most influential leaders of Brazil's indigenous communities, he led the Yawalapiti community in the area of the Xingu river, contributing to the creation, in 1961, and to the expansion of the Xingu indigenous park alongside brothers and activists Cláudio and Leonardo Villas-Bôas. Today it extends over nearly 30,000 square kilometres and is home to 16 tribes. The same region from which indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire, his close friend, also comes.

The announcement of Aritana's death from Covid-19 was made by his family: "He was a great champion of the struggles to defend and carry forward the culture of his people, for future generations, and a tireless activist against deforestation."

Also paying tribute to him was Robin Hanbury-Tenison, president of the global movement Survival International, who himself contracted Sars-CoV-2 and survived after a very long stay in hospital: "I am deeply saddened by the news of Aritana Yawalapiti's death. I first met him in 1971: he was an extraordinary young man. When I returned to visit him in 2016, I found a wise and greatly respected leader, a figure of great importance to the Xingu people. It is a tragedy that, alongside the many Brazilian indigenous people who are dying of Covid-19, one of their most important leaders has also had to suffer the same fate. At this difficult time it is essential that wise voices prevail against the folly of the current Brazilian regime, and it is therefore particularly sad to have to say goodbye to Aritana, a great man and a dear friend."

Eliane Brum @brumelianebrum

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Morre o grande Aritana. O Xingu silencia.
Não é fatalidade. É genocídio.

Texto pungente de @felipedjeguaka

cartacapital.com.br/opiniao/morreu…

♥ 1022💬 12 6 ago 2020 · Apri su X →

Indigenous tribes among those hardest hit by the pandemic in Brazil

His passing is a confirmation of the fact that Brazil's indigenous peoples are particularly hard hit by this pandemic, also because of policies that have neglected the crisis. So much so that many of those working in the field of public health agree that the conduct of the administration led by President Jair Bolsonaro is among the causes of the high number of infections among communities in the Amazon. After all, without the adoption of effective and extraordinary measures, it is simply not conceivable to think of being able to treat people suffering from respiratory crises who, in order to reach the nearest hospital — often the only one — must face a journey lasting hours, by boat or along unpaved roads.

This is what Aritana had to face before he died. His family tried in vain to take him first to the small town of Canarana, in Mato Grosso, and then to a hospital in Goiânia after a nine-hour journey. At the wheel was Dr Celso Correia Batista, tasked with caring for the indigenous peoples of the Xingu region.

What future for the Yawalapiti after Aritana?

Aritana was one of the last elder leaders, to the point of being among the last people able to speak his tribe's language. "The passing of my uncle Aritana means that our language has lost the only person who truly knew it," his niece Watatakalu told the Brazilian newspaper Cartacapital. Today there are only three people who speak the Yawalapiti language.

A loss, then, that defies description. A grief for all of humanity, whose biodiversity must be preserved. Because, even if we do not realise it, even if we believe ourselves immune, ours is a species at risk due to habitat loss, like so many others. For this reason, the hope is that Aritana's ten children will be able to succeed him worthily and ensure that their rights are recognised and respected. So that the death of a leader does not come to mean the death of a community.